Source : https://sg.usembassy.gov/educationusa-singapore/

Common App Common App Refreshed Application Page effective Aug 2025

Please check your preferred university websites under admission information on whether it is a compulsory or optional entry requirement for application.

  We are writing to share important updates to the Harvard first year application supplement for this coming application cycle, 2023-24. These updates will be reflected in both the Common Application supplement (which opens August 1) and the Coalition Application supplement, Powered by Scoir (which we anticipate opening August 15).
New Required Supplement Short-Answer Questions
For applicants to the Class of 2028, the Harvard supplement optional essay has been removed and replaced with five required short-answer questions. The seeds for the newly required questions, or the actual questions themselves, have all previously existed in the supplement. This is an evolution of last year’s supplement, not a reset or reimagining of what the admissions committee wishes to know about all applicants in their whole person, contextual review.
Our intention is that every student has an opportunity to reflect on and share how their life experiences and academic and extracurricular activities shaped them, how they will engage with others at Harvard, and their aspirations for the future. Our continued focus is on considering the whole student in the admissions process and how they have interacted with the world.
The new required short-answer questions, all with 200-word limits, are: 

1. Harvard has long recognized the importance of enrolling a diverse student body. How will the life experiences that shape who you are today enable you to contribute to Harvard? 

2. Briefly describe an intellectual experience that was important to you. 

3. Briefly describe any of your extracurricular activities, employment experience, travel, or family responsibilities that have shaped who you are. 

4. How do you hope to use your Harvard education in the future? 

5. Top 3 things your roommates might like to know about you. 

Information Suppression - Test Scores and Race/Ethnicity
Harvard is in its third year of a test-optional admissions policy. If a student elects to apply test-optional and chooses to input standardized test scores, the scores will be suppressed in the PDF of the application that admissions officers receive. The scores will not be viewable or considered as part of the application.
As in previous years, students are able to optionally indicate their race and/or ethnicity on the application via check boxes. However - new this year - that information will be suppressed for all applicants in the PDF of the application that our admissions officers receive for review.  Applicants will be informed of this change as they prepare to submit their application.